"The average American in the upper
Midwest and the Northeast... [is following] the wind-chill factor
more avidly than sports statistics... Floridians... [are] watching
their crops freeze..."

Another complaint about this year's weather?
No.

It's a description of the winter of 1977
from The Weather Conspiracy,1 a book published
over 25 years ago. The description was cited as evidence that
the world would soon be plunged into a new ice age.

Back in the 1970s, environmentalists
blamed unusually cold weather on "global cooling."
Today, they blame cold weather on - if you can believe it - "global
warming."

We shouldn't have taken them seriously
then. We shouldn't take them seriously now.

"Increased extreme events like [this
year's heavy snows] are very, very much in line with the predictions
of climate models," Melissa Carey of the Environmental Defense
Fund recently told CNSNews.com. "Increased precipitation
and more extreme precipitation events like flooding or blizzards,
hotter summers... increased storms like hurricanes and tornados
[are likely]."2

Perhaps they are in line with the climate
models she relies upon. But they're also in line with the predictions
for global cooling and, for that matter, global nothing-at-all.

Say what one will about the environmentalist
claim in the 1970s that harsh winters were signs of global cooling
- at least it made a certain amount of sense intuitively.

Blaming global warming now certainly
doesn't.

And for good reason. The kind of weather
we've been experiencing suggests that global warming is not occurring.

Cold weather and snowfall are only possible
because of cold air masses that form in polar and Arctic regions.

Air masses cool by emitting heat both toward the ground and into
space as they move over snow and ice-covered surfaces. As long
as air masses remain warmer than the surface, they continue cooling
as they travel.3

If the planet truly were warming, one
would expect fewer cold air masses of this type, not more.

One doesn't need to know this, however,
to recognize that what advocates of the global warming theory
are saying is rubbish.

Heavy snows have occurred under all sorts
of conditions. Despite what the Environmental Defense Fund says,
big snowfalls should not be seen as evidence that the global
warming theory is correct.

Consider these storms during and immediately
following the Little Ice Age of 1650-1850, when the planet was
colder.

A February 1717 storm dumped more than
three feet of snow on Boston and up to six feet of snow further
north.4 A storm in January 1831 blanketed states from
Georgia to Maine in up to 30 inches of snow.5

In 1899, the Great Eastern Blizzard pelted
snow from Georgia to New Hampshire. Montana temperatures dropped
to 61 degrees below zero; Georgia's to 12 below.6 Miami
froze.7 Ice developed throughout the entire Mississippi
River, while tugs were frozen out of Lake Michigan ports.8 Virginia
received 30-40 inches of snow;9 Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York City and
New England, three feet.10

So much for the notion that big snowstorms
are proof the planet is warming right now.

Some environmentalists are smart enough
to know their credibility on global warming is stretching thin.
They know most Americans can't buy the idea that cold weather
events such as blizzards are evidence of global warming.

So environmentalists have come up with
a plan to explain it all.

Over the past several years, some environmentalists
have shopped around the idea that global warming can trigger
- you guessed it, global cooling. It supposedly does so by causing
more clouds to form, which in turn prevents the sun's energy
from reaching the earth in the first place.11

This gives those environmentalists who
have staked their reputations on global warming enormous flexibility.

If the planet warms, global warming is
to blame.

If the planet cools, global warming is
to blame.

If the planet does nothing at all, that,
too, could be evidence of global warming as global warming's
warming and cooling effects could simply be said to have cancelled
each other out.

3 For more information, see David Ridenour, "Don't
Like the Weather? Don't Blame it on Global Warming," National
Policy Analysis #206, The National Center for Public Policy Research,
Washington, D.C., August 1998, available online at http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA206.html.

b "February Weather Facts," National Weather Service,
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Washington,
D.C., as cited in "Don't Like the Weather? Don't Blame it
on Global Warming" (see footnote 3).

5 "January Weather Facts," National Weather
Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Washington,
D.C., as cited in "Don't Like the Weather? Don't Blame it
on Global Warming" (see footnote 3).

6 "Weather Service Marks Centennial of Record Cold
Wave," NOAA News, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
Washington, D.C., available online at http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s123.htm
as of March 5, 2003.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

b "February Weather Facts," National Weather Service,
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Washington,
D.C., has this to say of the 1899 cold snap: "Perhaps the
greatest of all arctic outbreaks commenced on this date. The
temperature plunged to 61 degrees below zero in Montana. At the
same time, a 'Great Eastern Blizzard' left a blanket of snow
from Georgia to New Hampshire. The state of Virginia took the
brunt of the storm, with snowfall totals averaging 30 to 40 inches."